This Is The Way You Left Me
by cavlik97
Summary: "All she wanted was his warm arms around her, his neck rested on her shoulders, his soft voice promising her that everything was okay. But it wasn't. It was never going to be okay again." He visits her in her dream and leaves her a little something. (Post 3x18; two-shot)
1. Gone

She'd stolen a Division car, disabled the GPS, removed the tracker and stomped down on the accelerator as hard as humanly possible. The car raced down the street, skidding slightly but Alex never faltered, tears stuck to her face and her vision blurred as her chest heaved with the struggle she was having to breathe evenly.

He was gone.

_Another _person she loved was _gone _and it was _her _fault.

She'd suspected it for days now – that Amanda had done something to her but the thought was too awful and invasive to bear so she had pushed it to the back of her mind and ignored its hammering presence. And because of it, he was dead.

'_Dammit_!' she half screamed, pounding her fist into the steering wheel. There was a crack and the wheel was dented from her unadulterated force. Her knuckles were grazed and stained with blood – hers and what had been his as she'd scrambled to find an exit wound, a last hope that he could survive this.

Eventually, the sky fell dark and the cold snuck in. Alex was still trembling and the lack of light wasn't helping her case. She gave in, pulling over on the side of the road and carefully parking behind a clump of trees so that if (or rather, _when_) Nikita and the others came looking for her, they wouldn't find her (or, not so easily anyway).

There were emergency supplies in every Division car, including a blanket, some long-lasting army food as well as a weapon and ammunition. Alex retrieved everything from the secret holding locker underneath the back seat, loading up the gun and curling up underneath the blanket. She didn't eat. She still felt like she was going to be sick. If the others didn't find her, she knew she would be okay. Stealing things was easy enough and she had enough money at hand to tie her over for at least a day in a city. There was a wallet she kept in her back pocket at all times. Reaching for it, a small photograph slipped out of the black, worn leather.

Him. (And her).

At his apartment one evening, just as the sun was setting. Actually, it was the evening before the morning he had told her he was possibly to be deployed again. She was curled up under his covers, sifting through some paperwork for a recent mission she had to hand in when he surprised her by whipping out a camera.

'Wha – the hell are you doing?' she demanded but her lips had curved upwards in a smile.

'Snapshotting this moment with a gorgeous girl,' he'd replied with a wink, flopping down beside her, snapping another photograph.

'Ugh, _no_!' she mumbled, nuzzling her face into the crook of his neck to hide herself from the camera. At the time, she'd been unaware that he'd taken a photo of her like this but this now was evidence that he had. His eyes were so full of adoration that Alex's heart ached. That was the time before his life almost ended, before his death was faked to bring him home alive.

And now, there was no false pretenses to his body left at Division.

The tears that she thought she'd run out of spilled over her bright blue eyes, rolling down her pale, tired cheeks and her whole body started to shake again. The photograph sagged and the colours ran at her constant-flowing tears. All she wanted was his warm arms around her, his neck rested on her shoulders, his soft voice promising her that everything was okay – everything was _going _to be okay.

But it wasn't. It was never going to be okay again.

Alex's eyes drooped and she clutched the photograph tightly, sinking into the chair and pulling the blanket over her shoulders. She allowed the tears to trickle over her lips and seep into her shirt. She didn't care anymore.

She dreamt of him.

Nightmares at first, and she'd wake up screaming, breath ragged, begging to be back at his apartment with his arm strung loosely across her waist, comforting her and kissing away the tears.

But instead she found the blackness of the night and the coldness of the air and the emptiness of this goddamned car.

After a while, the sleep she fell into was deep and peaceful and easy. He was there, still. They were in Russia, in her house – her bedroom, specifically, both sitting cross legged on the bed.

He wore a pale blue t-shirt and jeans. His hair was ruffled and untamed, chocolate brown eyes boring into hers as a small smile graced his boyish features.

She sat in track pants and a tank top Nikita had lent her months ago. Their knees were touching and he was tracing patterns on her wrist.

'Come back to me,' she said finally.

'You know I can't,' he replied quietly.

'I don't care. I don't want to live without you.'

'Alex,' he said softly, 'you're a fighter. You lose people and you always pick yourself up and keep going. Don't make me an exception.'

'But you are!' she cried. 'You know me! You know everything about me better than anyone else. You love me and you've been willing to put your life on the line and _lose it _for me.' She broke down. 'You _did _lose it for me.'

'Hey, hey, hey, look at me,' he said firmly, taking her face in his hands. 'I died because I loved you and that is the only way I've wanted to go for months now. You are the only reason I had to be alive. But I wasn't yours. You have Nikita, Michael, Birkhoff, Ryan – all of them. Go home, Alex. They need you.'

'I need you though,' she whispered and she sounded like a helpless child.

'I'm not saying it's going to be easy,' he admitted. 'You need to know how much I loved you.'

'I do know,' Alex began but he shook his head, pressing his finger to her lips.

'When you're ready,' he said, 'go back to my apartment. You know the safe in my room? The one I said had information that would expose my mother as a member of Oversight and how I needed it hidden to keep her memory in tact? Go and open it. You'll know how to when you get there. It's not your average lock.'

'What's in it?' asked Alex hoarsely.

'You'll see.'

'I don't want to wake up,' Alex mumbled. 'Ever. I want to be like this, here, with you forever.'

Sean smiled. 'I _am _with you forever. This is your dream, right? And I'm here. So technically...'

'Shut up, don't go all technical on me,' Alex snapped but she had twinkle in her eye as her gaze met his. 'If this is my dream, how do I know to go to the safe?'

Sean shrugged. 'You've been curious about it for months. But you aren't exactly going to invade my privacy without my permission, even though everything that is in that apartment belongs to you after my death.'

Alex's face fell at his actual acknowledgment of it. 'Sean,' she said almost inaudibly quiet. 'I never told you... _God _I never told you – I love you Sean, I need you to know. I don't care if this is my dream – wherever the hell you are now, heaven or whatever – just please understand that I love you so much.'

'I know,' Sean promised, resting his forehead against hers. 'I swear to you. Wherever the hell I am, heaven or whatever – I do know.'

Alex clutched his t-shirt in a tightly balled fist, edging closer to him, _needing _to be near him even if it was only a dream.

'It's not fair,' she said stubbornly.

'It's not,' he agreed, his arms wrapping around her exactly how she remembered them. 'I don't want you pining away and brooding by yourself. You'll drive yourself to insanity. Knowing you, you won't eat or sleep properly and you'll do something stupid – like relapse.'

'I'm sleeping properly now,' Alex brought up, ignoring the rest of his stern remark.

'Go home, Alex,' he begged. 'When you wake up, go back to Nikita. You need her.'

'Not as much as you,' she shot back.

'Please?' He did the thing she hated (but loved at the same time). He brought one hand to her cheek and pushed a strand of hair away from her eyes while his thumb hovered just over her skin for a moment as if he couldn't believe she was real.

She caved in and swore under her breath, opening her mouth to retort something back only to have him silence her with a kiss. She pulled him towards her immediately, reveling in the knowledge that even for these short moments of unconsciousness, she had him here. She curled fingers against his neck, smiling against his lips.

'I love you,' she murmured. 'I love you. I love you.' She couldn't say it enough because he'd never heard her say it when he'd been alive.

'I love you too,' he answered, kissing the tip of her nose. 'I _loved _you too. I always will.'

She was awoken with a jolt by the shrill ringing of her spare phone (her real one had been hit by a bullet somewhere in the gunfire). With a groan and a harsh wipe of the ever present tears on her face, she blindly reached out, grabbing the cold plastic and pressing it to her ear without realising what she was doing.

'Hello?'

'Alex? Oh my God – '

'Nikita, look...'

'Come home.'

As an almost exact echo of Sean's request, Alex felt her chest tighten, her breathing become irregular and she let out an irrepressible sob, crying into her hand to try and muffle the sounds. Nikita still heard.

'Alex, honey, tell me where you are, _please. _You can't be alone right now.'

'I want to go to his apartment,' Alex croaked. 'He...he had something f...for me there. But I can't drive...I can't even see...'

'I'll take you there,' Nikita said gently, 'just tell me where you are.'

'D...down the main road. When you g...get t...to the pine tree forest, I'm p...parked by the big tree to the l...left.'

'I'll be there in ten minutes,' Nikita said firmly. 'Alex, just use the emergency blanket, have a gun loaded and don't eat the food in there, it's worse than the prison stuff.'

Alex managed a tearful laugh. 'I loved him, Nikita,' she breathed. 'I never told him. And everything _hurts _because of that.'

'He knew Alex,' Nikita returned with a soft sigh. 'I promise you. He definitely knew by the end.'

**A/N: So. Who else spent the entirety of half an hour crying like there was no tomorrow? I'm serious, I've never cried so much over anything fictional (except perhaps the ending of Harry Potter). At least he died with Alex. But this is a two shot and there is another chapter so please review and there'll be another one up soon. **


	2. Unlocked

**A/N: Warning: super long, super angsty, super sad.**

The apartment was icy cold. It was obvious he hadn't been here in a couple of days. The kitchen benches were empty, there was a coat of dust over the coffee table in the living room and the bed hadn't been slept in for more than one night. There was a shirt discarded on the arm of the couch and a dismantled gun peeking out from under a cushion. The messiness from him and the attempted organisation from her – Alex supposed she'd forgotten how much she'd actually stayed here; how much influence she'd had on his life in the short time they'd been together. She even had a section of his wardrobe containing _her _clothing.

'Alex?' Nikita said softly and Alex jumped at her mentor's hand on the small of her back.

'Sorry,' Alex murmured. 'Just...remembering.'

'It's okay,' Nikita assured. 'We can be here as long as you want.'

Alex nodded, glancing around the bedroom. The camera he'd used to take the photos that day was placed carefully on his desk beside his row of photographs. His sisters, his mother, his niece and nephew –

Alex caught her breath, approaching the desk with hesitation and fingers trembling, she picked up a photograph that was frame with a rectangle of metal, sculpted vines. In the picture, it was everyone. There had been a moment after the take over where they were all sitting in the main office of Ops in silence when Birkhoff typed something into the computer and a flash exploded in the room from the largest screen, leading everyone to jump.

'The hell was that?' Michael had demanded.

'A photograph being taken from a semi-functional screen-cam,' Birkhoff answered easily. 'I reckon we should mark this moment which I can't believe is actually happening.'

Sean let out a small laugh, Alex following afterwards and soon, everyone else in suit.

Now, Alex's face hurt from the smile that she couldn't wipe off her face.

'You know something, Nikita?' she said quietly. 'He documented everything that mattered to him so he knew what he cared about if something were to happen out of the blue.'

'Smart guy,' Nikita commented. 'Is that photo what he left for you?'

Alex shook her head. 'No...no, that's in the safe. I found this. It's of all of us – he didn't just stay for me. You were all his friends, his _family _as well. He cared about you.'

Nikita chuckled. 'I know, Alex. He and Michael became close...so did he and Birkhoff. The three of them were trying to help Michael pick a tux one day in Ops before I caught them.'

'Of course they were,' Alex smirked with a giggle as she tried to put an image to the scenario. Cautiously, her eyes flickered to the safe in his closet on the right side of the bed. The closet door was open just slightly, revealing the grey metal of the small, cubed box with a keypad to enter a combination into.

An _unknown _combination.

'What's the code?' Nikita asked, dropping to her knees beside Alex as she crouched down to survey the safe closer.

'No idea,' Alex said bluntly. 'He said I'd know when I got there and that it wasn't an average lock.'

Nikita frowned, peering at the safe before letting out a whistle of impressment. 'Well he was right. It isn't an ordinary lock – it's a Division one. Percy, Amanda and the handlers were the only ones allowed to use these safes and they were for storing classified missions' info. I'm guessing Sean must've swiped one when he was still an Oversight adviser to Division.'

'And the combinations?' Alex pressed. 'Any specific sequencing to them?'

'They had to be the name of a mission in Division systems,' Nikita replied. 'The safes are synced to the black boxes. The combination _has _to be a mission name, which is why there's the alphabet as well as numbers on the keypad. There's just one catch – it has to be the mission name issued by the commander in charge.'

'What's the difference?' asked Alex in confusion.

Nikita sighed, running her fingers through her hair. 'A mission has one name for the agents on the mission. That name will be the name it is stored under on the black box. However, the name Percy or Amanda issued it under may be something different. Only the commander in charge and the handler overseeing the mission knew what the initial name was. It was a complicated system that Percy used to ensure he could trust his recruit handlers.'

'Paranoid old bastard,' Alex muttered. 'How the hell am I supposed to know the mission name Sean entered for this safe? I don't even know which mission he's talking about.'

'Think about Sean,' Nikita advised. 'Your first months together while you were both at Division. You were partners for a while...what missions did you go on that meant something, at least to him?'

'The one in Belarus meant something to both of us,' Alex said after a moment's thought. She was starting to feel sick again. She'd thought that going over her time with Sean might make things easier but looking back on the times when they'd barely even considered themselves _friends _made her nauseous, realising all the time she'd wasted that she could have had with him.

'Alex?' Nikita asked anxiously, snapping Alex out of her trance.

'Sorry,' she said quickly. 'Right. Uh...Belarus mission. Wasn't that Operation..._Looking _something?'

'_Looking glass_,' Nikita confirmed. 'I remember – it was the mission where Michael and I met Max and Cassandra while you and Sean almost got us killed.' The words were harsh but Nikita's small smile promised Alex that it was said light-heartedly.

'It was a mistake, you know that,' Alex returned with a roll of her eyes. 'I didn't even know you guys were there otherwise we would've been more careful.'

'Now, how are we supposed to know what name Amanda gave the reboot of this mission?' Nikita said, furrowing her eyebrows. 'Knowing Amanda – '

'Wait,' Alex said suddenly. 'Amanda wouldn't have given the name. Sean and I went on this mission against orders – we did it for ourselves. He told me after the mission that 'Today, you did something that had nothing to do with Nikita, the black box or Division.''

'What else did he say?' Nikita urged.

A weak laugh escaped Alex's lips. 'I know what the code is,' she announced in a whisper, moving her thumb to the keypad to type in words that had burned in the back of her mind ever since they'd been uttered to her.

_T-H-E L-I-T-T-L-E T-H-I-N-G-S I-N L-I-F-E_

With a click and a groan of moving metal, the door swung loose, revealing a stack of letters, photographs, a gun, a little-league baseball medal and some jewelry boxes.

'It's not all for me,' Alex voiced. 'I bet there's only a letter and a picture...and probably the gun.'

'Well, you own everything in this apartment Alex,' Nikita reminded, 'so you could see everything in this safe as yours anyway.'

Alex glanced at the woman to her left. 'Do you think he'd be angry if I did?'

Nikita shook her head. 'He trusted you with everything,' she promised. 'There's a reason the combination to the safe is one that you would be able to crack.'

Alex swallowed, feeling the tears well as Sean's inexplicably neat, yet scrawly handwriting caught her eye from a letter inside the safe.

'Will you help me go through everything?' she asked in a tiny voice. From beside her, Nikita's breath hitched in her throat. Alex sounded like a small child and looked like one too. She was sitting, cross legged on the floor, her hair unbrushed and her face smeared with tears. Her whole body was shaking and Nikita only wished there was something else she could do but from experience, knew that nothing would help.

'Of course,' she said eventually. 'It's why I'm here.'

From there, they both fell into silence. They pulled out everything from the safe, laying it between them. Nikita sorted the objects while Alex read through the letters which pieced together a story of how Sean slowly had drifted away from Division and Oversight to Team Nikita.

_Sean,_

_I know that going through with the favour I ask of you in this letter is the last thing you want to do after returning home from deployment but I need this from you. Your sisters can wait. You are a sideline member of Oversight, whether you like it or not. Now the black ops programme that we have been funding has spiraled out of control, including Percy now being in lockup at the base of the silo. Amanda is running the place currently, however, knowing her, things may get even more out of hand than they already are._

_I need you stationed at Division to oversee what they are doing with the place. You will have full access to funds, files, documents, classified information, mission briefings – whatever you require, Amanda is obligated to give it to you._

_The rest of Oversight have already agreed on you doing this Sean, I'm afraid you don't have much of a choice in the matter. _

_Also, there is one more thing we would like you to look over while you are posted at Division:_

_Alexandra Udinov. _

_Yes, the same Alexandra Udinov who is daughter of Nikolai and Katya Udinov, the Russian heiress. She is alive. Unfortunately, she had been recruited by the rogue Division agent Nikita and the two of them had used Alexandra to infiltrate Division and bring the place down. There __was__ however, a falling out between the two and they have split up. Alexandra seems to be working with Division to try and bring down Sergai Semak, the man who ordered the kill hit on her family. We do not know for sure how close she and Nikita were though and we need to be assured that we will not be betrayed by this young woman blinded by hatred and revenge. _

_Good luck Sean, and I'm sorry you had to get involved in this._

_-Mom _

Alex set aside the letter, trying to process the fact that Sean had been assigned to _keep an eye on her. _She had been a part of his job from the beginning – but he was never supposed to have protected her. Just to ensure they were on the same side. She picked up the next letter in front of her, trying to clear her head as she read.

_Mom,_

_I did this job out of my loyalty as a son to you and my loyalty to this country. But little did I know that people here were fighting for what was right this entire time for their __lives____and for the lives of the innocent whom they feel responsible for._

_Division is not doing any good whatsoever to this country. They run kill missions, they assassinate their own people, they run a covert rogue black ops group that cannot be controlled – how Oversight could possibly agree to keep funding them is beyond me._

_We learnt recently that Nikita and her team were willing to save your life despite the hell that your funding has caused them. I'm still here because you need protection but don't expect me to do anything in Division's favour. I am fighting from now onwards on Nikita's side because I owe them my life as well as yours. I never deserved their forgiveness, especially Alex's after everything that I did for her was a lie in her eyes. _

_I care about her, despite the rules you placed on me for not getting emotionally involved with anyone I met on this posting. I don't care Mom. Alex is one of the strongest, fiercest, most incredible people I have ever met and she has a heart and fire that I have never seen in anyone except her and the people she calls her family. I want to be fighting with her and I want her to trust me which is why after you receive the protection that you requested, I'm leaving. I'm going to the beach house and I'm staying there until we bring Division down and can get on with our lives._

_I'm sorry but I owe this to them – to __Alex____– more than I owe it to you._

_-Sean_

Alex could feel her heart pounding in her chest. He must've written is just after the failure of Operation Clean Sweep. She pushed aside this letter, grabbing the next one with sweaty palms.

_Dear Jill – _

_I'm sorry I wasn't at the funeral. I was trying to go after the bombers...I couldn't get over the fact she was gone..._

_God, I'm so sorry I wasn't there. I can't imagine what you were going through and I wish I could take everything back because someone I care about ended up getting severely hurt due to my stupidity. _

_Look, I don't know when I'm going to see you next. I'm trying to go through Mom's paperwork, figure out who I can give things to, sort out whether I can get in touch with Dad – wherever the hell he is. I hope everything is okay between you and Gary. I know you were going through some hard times but hang in there for Mason. He doesn't deserve being caught in the middle of fighting parents. Tell the little guy I love him, kay? I want to see him – I want to see you all but things are hard right now. There's some work that Mom was caught up in that she shouldn't have been and I have to help clean it all up before things spin out of control (more than they already have)._

_Maybe you won't hate me as much if I tell you that I have a girl? Well. Sort of. There might be something there, I don't really know. She's been there for me with Mom's death and she's absolutely amazing, I swear Jill, she's incredible. You don't need to tell me to give you details – if something happens, I'll let you know. (Why you've always been so invested in my love life is beyond me)._

_I'll try and drop in at Christmas._

_I love you – _

_Sean_

Alex let out a choked laugh, earning a smile from Nikita who quietly asked 'You okay?', to which Alex replied 'Yeah...I'm good.'

There was one more letter left. It was the only letter in an envelope and it was taped to one of the jewelry boxes. On the envelope was word: _Alex. _

_Alexandra Udinov,_

_I always liked the name. It suits you. _

_What do you think about Alexandra Pierce?_

_-S_

Alex's heart came to a thudding stop in her chest and all breathing was suddenly knocked out of her by an invisible punch to her stomach. The nausea was washing over her again and her vision became blurry as she attempted to curl her fingers around the small, velvet box through the salty tears that clouded her eyes. She didn't want to open it. She didn't want to acknowledge the fact that it could have happened, that she could have had this happiness and now he was _gone _–

'I can't do this!' she cried, crumpling the paper in her hand and scrambling to her feet, stumbling out of the room to try and find somewhere in this goddamned apartment that didn't feel like him, remind her of him, smell like him, have memories of him...

'Alex, what is it?' Nikita demanded, hurrying after her. Alex whirled round to face her best friend, fresh tears cascading down her cheeks. Her stomach was clenching and she knew with certainty that she was going to be sick.

'This is _my fault_!' Alex shrieked. 'He is _dead _because I was a blinded _idiot_!'

'Amanda _brainwashed _you, Alex!' Nikita shouted back with equal fire. 'None of this is your fault, all of this is because of Amanda!'

'So what, I have someone to blame?' Alex yelled. 'Because it seems that I always have someone to blame for this! I could blame Semak for my parents, Vlad for the girls, you for Thom, Jaden for Nathan, Amanda for Sean but why don't I just wake up and realise that it's always because of me. Then I'm allowed to admit that I have _no _reason to live after everything I've done and I can just give up!'

'Alex – '

'Nikita, _don't_! This stupid fight with Division is still yours but it ended for me when I avenged my parents' death. Before Sean died, it was all of us trying to find a way to shut it down and move on with our lives but now he's gone and I have no reason to care anymore. I have _nothing _to live for. Just please shoot me or _something _– just let me die!'

She fell to her knees, her body wracked with sobs, her fingers itching for her gun, head spinning with self loathing and unfathomed hatred for everyone and everything.

'You told me that once, a long time ago,' Nikita said softly, kneeling in front of Alex.

'This time it's true,' Alex rasped out. 'This time I really don't care.'

'We do this for them,' Nikita said, taking Alex's hands. 'We say that we do it for the lives we're living, we say that we've moved on and that we're going to move on and that all of this is for the good of our future and the lives of innocents but it's all lies. We do what we're doing now for the people who aren't here. I'm in this fight because of Daniel and no matter how much I love Michael, that's not going to change. Ryan is in this fight – and yes, Alex, he's going to survive this – because he lost his entire life and his work for following up on a Division lead. Owen is in this – or _was _in this, with us anyway – because of Emily. Michael lost Elizabeth and Haley, Birkhoff must've lost someone or he wouldn't be here now. Alex, you've lost your parents, your life in Russia, you lost Thom, Nathan, Jaden, Yuri, you lost Zetrov, despite your mother being alive, you lost the ability to ever be able to trust her again and now you've lost Sean. But in the beginning, you joined me on this fight because you wanted to avenge your parents.'

'So what?' Alex demanded venomously. 'What does any of that matter?'

'It matters because they are dead so that we can live,' Nikita answered swiftly. 'When Daniel died, I went rogue. Because I went rogue, I saved your life. While we worked together, we brought Michael and Birkhoff onto this side. From that, all of us have saved more lives than we will ever be able to count, even though we've lost some as well. I know you're want to know why you have to live and suffer through all of this. I asked the same question when Daniel was murdered. But we're here...we survived then and those people we've all saved... who knows, maybe they'll save someone one day. And that will be because of us.'

Alex looked up, meeting the concerned and empathic gaze of anxious brown eyes in front of her.

'He had an engagement ring, Nikita,' she whispered hoarsely. 'He had our future planned out.'

Nikita's face changed immediately and she pulled Alex into a tight hug. 'Alex, I'm so sorry...'

'I don't want to have to do this,' Alex cried into Nikita's shoulder. 'I don't want to have to lose anyone else. We were supposed to get a happily ever after. All of us.'

Nikita swallowed back her own tears as waves of memories crashed onto the beaches of her mind, rolling over each other, refusing to drift back to sea.

'I know,' she sighed. 'But life never seems to give anyone a perfectly happy ending, no matter how much they deserve it.'

_This it the way you left me_

_I'm not pretending_

_No hope, no love, no glory_

_No happy ending_

_This is the way that we love_

_Like it's forever_

_And live the rest of our lives_

_But not together._

**A/N: I'm sorry. That turned out way more angsty than I anticipated. Eh. **

**The "we were supposed to get a happily ever after" kind of ties into my story **_**Prince of Nothing Charming **_**where Sean mentions things of him wanting to be her fairytale prince la di da di da (go read it). **

**Meanwhile, this last episode was amazing! I kinda wanted a scene of Alex breaking down in front of Nikita but hey, I wrote it instead.**

**I'm sorry this hurts so much.**

**I love you all Salex fandom: stay strong x **

**(Please review).**


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